On March 23, 2023, TikTok CEO Shou Chew faced a House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing that pressed him on two connected but distinct concerns: harms and content decisions on the platform, and the security and access arrangements for U.S. user data. Chew described TikTok’s practices and offered assurances; lawmakers challenged whether those assurances were enough. The hearing record documents the debate, not proof that every allegation was true or every assurance independently verified.
What the hearing covered
The hearing, titled “TikTok: How Congress Can Safeguard American Data Privacy and Protect Children from Online Harms,” took place on Thursday, March 23, 2023. The committee identified Chew as TikTok Inc.’s CEO and published his written statement and hearing materials. The U.S. Government Publishing Office catalogs the record as Serial No. 118-13 in the 118th Congress, 1st session. House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing page; GovInfo catalog record.
Members questioned Chew about child and teen safety, dangerous challenges and eating-disorder content, moderation decisions, the way recommendations can amplify material, U.S. data security and access, TikTok’s relationship with China, and whether existing liability rules adequately address platform conduct. These subjects overlapped in the hearing, but they are not interchangeable: a content-moderation dispute is not, by itself, evidence about who can access user data, and a data-storage assurance does not settle whether harmful content is being handled well.
What Chew said about U.S. data and Oracle
In testimony captured in the committee’s preliminary transcript, Chew said: “Today the algorithm that powers the U.S. user experience is running in the Oracle Cloud infrastructure.” He also described U.S. data as having been stored in Virginia and Singapore in the past and said access was on an as-required basis. Lawmakers questioned whether those assurances adequately addressed their concerns.
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Those statements should be read as Chew’s account during the hearing, not independent verification of the full data-access arrangement. The transcript records a contested exchange; it does not establish all the details of access controls, oversight, or how the arrangement worked in practice. Preliminary hearing transcript.
Safety, harmful content and moderation
Lawmakers raised examples involving dangerous challenges and content promoting eating disorders, as well as questions about how TikTok identifies and removes harmful material. These were examples and concerns voiced during the hearing, not platform-wide prevalence estimates or independent findings about moderation performance.
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In one exchange, Chew said, “Dangerous [inaudible] are not allowed on our platform. If we find them, we will remove them.” The transcript’s bracketed “[inaudible]” is part of the record and should not be silently removed from the quote. In the same exchange, a member said he had brought a video to TikTok’s attention and that it was then removed. The exchange illustrates the disagreement over enforcement, but does not by itself measure how consistently TikTok detects or removes harmful content.
Chew also referred to a 60-minute time limit for users under 18. That is a feature he described in his 2023 testimony; the hearing does not establish what settings are available now or whether they were effective for every young user.
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Why independent researcher access became a flashpoint
Representative Lori Trahan challenged whether TikTok’s announced researcher API would let independent researchers examine how its recommendation algorithm promotes content and which users receive it. She raised concerns about the data researchers could access and restrictions on what they could publish. Chew said he would look into the details and get back to her.
Trahan’s office reported that she also urged TikTok to extend to younger U.S. users protections she said were available to children in the United Kingdom. According to her office, Chew did not commit to that request during the hearing and promised follow-up. Her remarks framed the broader transparency dispute: researchers need enough access to scrutinize recommendations and potential harms, while access terms also affect privacy, data scope, and the ability to publish findings. The hearing exchange does not establish what changes were later made or what the API offers today. Trahan’s account of the exchange.
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How to read the hearing record
The committee transcript is labeled unedited and warns that statements may be inaccurate, incomplete, or misattributed. It is useful for understanding the questions, answers, interruptions, and competing claims in the room, but consequential quotations should be checked against the full committee record or hearing video where possible. CBS News’ contemporaneous summary also covers the hearing.
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- What it establishes: the date, participants, topics raised, and the statements recorded in the preliminary transcript.
- What it does not establish on its own: that each allegation was true, that Chew’s assurances were independently verified, or that any particular moderation or data-access practice was effective.
- What remains outside this historical record: TikTok’s present-day policies and infrastructure, the current scope of its researcher API, and later legislative or company changes.
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